Monthly Archives: October 2011

One of the great themes of reformers and deep-dish thinkers these days is that our politics are too polarized between right and left, that there are no more moderates left. It is true that there are hardly any conservative Democrats left, and very few liberal Republicans. Over the last couple decades the Republican Parry has become much more fully and self-consciously conservative, and the Democratic Party much more fully and »

Yesterday the Washington Post launched a rather weird smear of Marco Rubio, accusing him of “embellishing” his family history. What was the embellishment? Rubio’s parents first came to the United States before Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba; thereafter they planned to return to Cuba, and his mother actually did, but by then it was evident that the regime was Communist, so she came back to the U.S., where the »

The nicest thing you hear anyone say about the “Occupy Wall Street” movement and its spin-offs is that they are like the Tea Party. That is what President Obama, for one, has claimed. More objective observers think that it takes a remarkable degree of myopia not to notice the differences. This video by Minnesota Majority sums them up well. Feel free to share with your friends: »

Edward Jay Epstein has written at least two books that arise out of his relationship with James Jesus Angleton, the original CIA head of counterintelligence. Ed has drawn on these books to write the new ebook James Jesus Angleton: Was He Right? Ed explains: Angleton was the first head of CIA counterintelligence and, for me, an enduring enigma. He was by far the most interesting and challenging person I ever »

Yesterday the Senate voted on cloture with respect to one part of President Obama’s Son of Stimulus program; i.e., the portion that would send billions to the states to fund public employee compensation. The motion received only 50 votes and did not come close to passing: President Obama is an increasingly unpopular president whom the American people trust less and less on economic matters, and his repeated failure to secure »

I’m still kicking myself for having swallowed whole the Progressive critique dished out in law school and elsewhere over the years about the Supreme Court’s decision in Lochner v. New York (1905), frequently derided as one of the Supreme Court’s all-time worst decisions. In Rehabilitating Lochner: Defending Individual Rights Against Progressive Reform, law professor and Volokh Conspiracy contributor David Bernstein establishes that everything we were ever taught about Lochner is »

I’ve had some experience with Silicon Valley high tech folks a few times over the years, including once sitting in on a meeting of some Valley CEOs with a very slick California Democrat (who is now in Congress), who had them completely bamboozled that he was “pro-business.” High tech people are mostly clueless about politics, chiefly because their tech background leads them to think that political problems should be solved »

The New York Post reports on a “chaotic” Community Board meeting in which residents who are unfortunate enough to live in the vicinity of Zuccotti Park unloaded on the “Occupy Wall Street” protesters: “They are defecating on our doorsteps,” fumed Katherine Hughes, a stay at home mom who has the misfortune of living one block from the chaos. “A lot of people are very frustrated. A lot of people are »

Yesterday a guy whose name appears to be Andrew Fox happened to see a very cool car where he lives in the D.C. area, and took the trouble to investigate. As a result, he highlighted an Obama administration boondoggle that in some respects is worse than Solyndra. The car turned out to be a Fisker Karma–a gasoline/electric hybrid vehicle that sells for around $100,000: It’s a gorgeous vehicle, manufactured in »

The jury in the terror trial of the two Somali women who raised funds for al Shabab in Rochester, Minnesota, returned with a raft of guilty verdicts this morning. The women were convicted of charges including conspiracy to provide material support to a designated terrorist organization, of providing support, and of lying to the FBI. The jury deliberated for about 20 hours. The ringleader was not exactly remorseful after the »

It’s been a while since I’ve seen the bumper sticker proclaiming Support mental health or I’ll kill you, but Vice President Biden is adapting the bumper sticker approach to promoting Obama’s so-called jobs (i.e., Son of Stimulus) bill. Biden suggested last week in Flint, Michigan that more rapes and murders could occur if the bill is not passed. Biden reiterated his warning in Philadelphia on Tuesday. Biden’s approach to promoting »

Angeleo Codevilla has been a relentless critic of the wars conducted by the United States in the wake of 9/11. The Claremont Review of Books (subscribe here) has been Codevilla’s publication of choice for these essays, and the new (fall) issue features the latest installment of Codevilla’s critique. It is a critique that I resist without being able to refute. Indeed, I would concede that parts of it are irrefutable. »

My wife showed me this photo and asked who I thought it was: Well, I said, that’s easy: it is Bill and Hillary Clinton. Admittedly, the girl doesn’t exactly look like Hillary, but the guy is obviously Bill. Ergo… But the guy is not Bill Clinton. Via Facebook, it is… »

A few weeks ago, Mitt Romney observed that corporations are people. This prompted hysteria on the left, including a video produced by the Democratic Party. But of course Romney was right. A corporation consists of its owners, i.e. shareholders, and its employees–people. It is an elementary principle of law that a corporation can act only through its employees and agents–people. The Democrats’ apparent belief that you can hurt companies without »

Poor Keith Olbermann! Driven out of MSNBC–the hinterlands, at best, when it comes to cable news ratings–he has been relegated to Al Gore’s Current TV network. I had never heard of Current TV, actually, until I saw this news story on Olbermann’s sad demise: Keith Olbermann is not in the witness protection program, but he might as well be. His show on Al Gore’s Current TV (America’s least watched network) »

Not when it comes to education, anyway. The Democrats are pushing for more spending and more debt, emphasizing the supposed need to spend more on teachers and schools. In fact, however, this country has carried out a laboratory experiment over the past four decades, and we have conclusively proved that more spending on education has nothing to do with successfully educating our children. This report from the Senate Budget Committee »